With advances in notebook computers, cell phones, and transportation individuals in modern society are becoming ever more mobile. As a result, telephone service users often find themselves working from any one of a plurality of locations. For many individuals, it is important that they be able to receive calls regardless of their location. This has prompted the widespread use of mobile telephones and call forwarding services. Because of power limitations and other limitations on the functionality available from mobile phones, people often find themselves with a business, e.g., land line, telephone number and a mobile telephone number. When away from their office phones, such individuals often choose to have their calls forwarded to a telephone number corresponding to the place where they will be located or to have their calls forwarded to a mobile telephone number.
Because individuals may be at different locations at different times, some known call forwarding services offer the user the option of entering a list of telephone numbers. The telephone numbers corresponding to various locations where the individual may be located. In the known system, calls are made to each of the listed numbers in sequence in an attempt to forward a call. In the event that a call goes unanswered for a preselected period of time, the next telephone number in the call forwarding list is called. While sequential dialing of call forwarding numbers allows multiple locations to be called in an attempt to reach the original called party, it can be time consuming to check several locations in this manner. This is because the call forwarding service waits for a response before trying the next number in the list of call forwarding numbers. Often a calling party may not be patient enough to wait while several locations are checked in sequence.
While call forwarding works well on telephone lines which are used for voice calls, in some businesses telephone lines are used for both voice and fax calls. This is more commonly the case in home offices where customer premise equipment, e.g., a fax/voice call switching device, is used to determine whether an incoming call is a fax or voice call and to connect the call to a telephone in the case of a voice call or fax device in the case of a fax call. While the shared use of a telephone line for voice and fax operations avoids the cost associated with maintaining separate telephone lines, it often presents a dilemma in the case of call forwarding. In many cases the user of the shared voice/fax line would like to have voice calls forwarded, e.g., to a mobile phone or another telephone while away from the office but doesn't want the fax calls to be forwarded. Alternatively, the user of the fax/voice line may want to forward both voice and fax calls but wants the fax calls forwarded to a different telephone number than the voice calls. For example, it may be desirable to forward voice calls to a mobile telephone and fax calls to the telephone number of a fax machine located at a hotel where the user is staying.
Fax calls present another problem with regard to an individual who is traveling. While people often carry cell phone and notebook computers when traveling and know the voice telephone number of a location they will be staying at, it is much less common for a traveler to bring a portable fax machine or to know the fax number of locations they will be staying at. Accordingly, the forwarding of fax call to people who are traveling can present several problems.
One disadvantage of existing call forwarding services is that they simply forward a call without any way of restricting who at the location to which the call is forwarded may answer the call. This often results in calls being answered by the wrong party and/or calls being answered in an inappropriate manner. For example, forwarded business calls may not be answered with the usual business greeting and/or they may be answered by someone who is totally unconnected with the business being called.
In view of the above discussion it is apparent that there is a need for improving existing call forwarding services.
From a telephone customer perspective, it is often easier to purchase a telephone service, e.g. a call forwarding service, from a telephone company rather than implement such a service using customer premise equipment, e.g., private branch exchange (PBX) equipment. In this manner, a customer can avoid the cost and expense associated with purchasing, installing, and maintaining telephone equipment. Thus, while improved call forwarding services may be implemented using customer premise equipment, it would be desirable that in at least some cases, improved call forwarding services could be provided without requiring the purchase of telephone equipment by a call forwarding service user.
In order to provide enhanced telephone services, many telephone companies now implement a telephone communications network as an Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) which has made it easier to provide a wide array of previously unavailable telephone services. In an AIN system, telephone central offices, each of which serves as a signal switching point (SSP), detect one of a number of call processing events identified as AIN “triggers”. SSPs are often implemented as central office telephone switches. An SSP which detects an AIN trigger suspends processing of the call which activated the trigger, compiles a call data message and forwards that message via a common channel interoffice signaling (CCIS) link to a database system, such as a Service Control Point (SCP). AIN messages are normally SS7 signaling based messages which are TCAP (technical capability application protocol) compliant.
A SCP can be implemented as part of an integrated service control point (ISCP). If needed, the SCP can instruct the central office SSP at which the AIN trigger was activated to obtain and forward additional information, e.g., information relating to the call. Once sufficient information about the call has reached the SCP, the SCP accesses stored call processing information, e.g., call processing records (CPRs) to generate from the received message data, a call control message. The call control message is then used to instruct the central office on how to process the call which activated the AIN trigger. As part of the call control message, an SCP can instruct the central office to send the call to an outside resource, such as an intelligent peripheral (IP) using, e.g., a send to outside resource (STOR) instruction. IPs are frequently coupled to SSPs to provide message announcement capabilities, voice recognition capabilities and other functionality which is not normally provided by the central office switch. The control message is normally communicated from the ISCP to the SSP handling the call via the CCIS link. Once received, the SCP processes the call in accordance with the instructions received in the control message.
One service which can be implemented with AIN functionality is Centrex. Centrex takes a group of normal telephone lines and provides call processing to add business features to the otherwise standard telephone lines. For example, Centrex adds intercom capabilities to the lines of a specified business group so that a business customer can dial other stations within the same group, e.g., lines belong to the same company, using extension numbers such as a two, three, or four digit numbers, instead of the full telephone number associated with each called line. Other examples of Centrex service features include call transfer between users at different stations of a business group, and a number of varieties of call forwarding. Thus, Centrex adds a bundle of business features on top of standard telephone line features without requiring special equipment, e.g., a private branch exchange (PBX) at the customer's premises. U.S. Pat. No. 5,247,571, which is hereby expressly incorporated by reference, describes in detail a Wide Area Centrex system implemented using AIN techniques.
In order to make it easier to manage various Centrex services, e.g., call forwarding services, it has been suggested that users of Centrex services be allowed to manage various service features from their computers via the Internet. U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,008 discusses the use of a server accessible via the Internet, to allow users limited control of AIN based telephone services from their computers.
In view of the above discussion, it becomes apparent that there is a need for improved call forwarding methods and apparatus that would allow a number of locations to be checked for the call forwarding service subscriber in a reasonable amount of time. There is also a need for methods and apparatus that can support forwarding of voice calls while providing for the separate forwarding or other processing of fax calls received on the same telephone line as the voice calls which are to be forwarded. It is also desirable that some form of security be available to prevent individuals other than the intended call recipient from receiving and/or answering forwarded calls. In addition, it is desirable that, at least in some cases, improved call forwarding services be capable of being provided without requiring a subscriber to purchase and/or install new telephone equipment. It is also desirable that at least some improved call forwarding service be capable of being provided to Centrex subscribers. There is also a need for some method of forwarding faxes to mobile subscribers who are not readily accessible to a fax machine capable of receiving and printing faxes.